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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

occasions

Book Loaned to Tom Andrews

Bobby C. Rogers

I'd already found out that one of the secrets to happiness was
never loan your books. But I loaned it anyway. We were all of
us poor and living
on ideas, stumbling home late to basement apartments, talking
to ourselves. What did we own except books and debt? When
the time came
we could move it all in the trunk of a car. Tom knew what a book
was worth—he brought it back a week later, seemingly
unhandled, just a little looser
in the spine, a trade paper edition of The Death of Artemio
Cruz, required reading for a course in postmodernism we
were suffering through.
The book's trashed now, boxed up and buried in the garage with
a hundred other things I can't throw away. When I moved
back south I loaned it again
to a girl I'd just met. At some party I'd said it was the best
novel since Absalom, Absalom!, which may have been true,
but mostly I was trying to impress her,
and convince myself, still testing all I'd been told about how
the matter of a book is best kept separate from, well,
matter. Months later it turned up
on my front steps without comment, the cover torn in two
places, the dog-eared pages of self-conscious prose
stuck together with dark, rich chocolate.